Learning organisation, affective commitment and cultural intelligence: the case of expatriates in the Gulf Co-operation Council countries

The economic development and diversity strategies in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries have created an attractive business environment to multi-national engineering and construction organisations. Those organisations heavily depend on expatriates who represent more than 90% of the workforce in the GCC countries. However, expatriates encounter several challenges due to the national culture and nationalisation policies, which affect their affective commitment. Organisations are now in a crucial need for a mechanism to improve expatriates' organisational affective commitment to be able to maintain their competitive advantage and to respond to the constant environmental changes quickly. This research explores the learning organisations role and moderating influence of cultural intelligence towards expatriates' affective organisational commitment within organisations in the engineering and construction industry in the GCC countries. There is a growing interest in the learning organisation concept and its influence on work-related outcomes, including employees' retention and commitment. However, existing literature has mostly focused on Western, Far Eastern, and North American countries. The cultural factor has not been considered when attempting to implement the learning organisation models across boundaries. To address this gap, the research has adopted a pragmatic epistemology by adopting a variety of research methodological approaches at different stages. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies have been adopted as a complementary process to overcome limitations. The findings have illustrated correlations between learning organisation dimensions, affective organisational commitment, and cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence moderates the correlation between learning organisation dimensions and affective organisational commitment. The findings are also essential to provide useful insights to inform policymakers, organisations, and Human Resource professionals of future thinking on managing individual talents in the GCC countries. The research is unique in exploring the learning organisation and cultural intelligence in the GCC countries offering a number of academic and practical recommendations on how to improve business practices and policies in the future.